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Prosecution Claims Sansom Opened Emails

During this morning’s hearing on Ray Sansom’s motion to dismiss his perjury charges, State Attorney Willie Meggs told Judge Terry Lewis that he would soon submit evidence that the former House Speaker opened emails regarding the $6 million airport hanger at the center of his official misconduct charge.

Meggs told Lewis that Sansom lied to a grand jury, saying the airport hangar was never intended for private use. “He said, ‘I will never be for a project like that,’ but the evidence the state has is entirely contradictory to that,” Meggs said.

Sansom’s attorney, Steve Dobson, recently told Lewis that the state has no evidence to prove Sansom received any such e-mails. “We keep hearing them say there is no evidence Sansom received those e-mails from (former Northwest Florida State College president) Bob Richburg, but our IT people say they can tell they were received and opened,” Meggs said.

Dobson spent much of the time trying to poke holes in Meggs’ counter to his dismissal motion, saying it includes allegations “that are not true at all.”

“They’re putting things in here that I don’t think can be established at a hearing,” Dobson said. “They don’t have a witness to say these three guys got together and planned how to do it, planned how to hide it from everyone else.”

He told Lewis there is no evidence Sansom was responsible for intentionally leaving out “airport” in the appropriation language to hide the facility’s purpose, to which Lewis replied: “I don’t type out a lot of my orders myself; it doesn’t mean I’m not responsible for them.”